UNCASVILLE, Connecticut — People used to pick Gene Keady out of a crowd by his classic combover.
That combover is now gone and where it once resided atop the legendary former Purdue basketball coach’s head is now covered by a black and gold hat with the signature ‘motion P’ logo.
But basketball fans can still pick Keady out in public.
As the 87-year-old Keady made his way through the Mohegan Sun casino on Friday afternoon, autograph seekers spotted him and halted him long enough to snag as many signatures as they could before Keady told them he had to go.
As recognizable as Keady still is, so to is Purdue’s brand of basketball, one built around a phrase he coined long ago.
“I had ‘Play hard’ on the seat of our pants to make them understand that you had to play hard in order to be successful in any endeavor of life,” Keady said during Friday’s 2023 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee press conference. “Just kind of a motto I had to make sure they understood when they see each other running away from them, they can see who was wearing play hard. That’s just kind of our motto that we wanted to play hard and be the best we were able to be.”
More:As Gene Keady enters Hall of Fame, former Purdue basketball coach’s impact remains on game
That phrase still resides in Mackey Arena.
On the walls.
And, yes, still on the backside of players’ practice shorts, including the pair Keady fittingly wore in Mackey Arena last Saturday for the Purdue basketball alumni game.
Some of the players who best symbolized that phrase — Purdue’s Three Amigos and Brian Cardinal, whose style of play earned him the nickname The Custodian — are among those who made the trip to Springfield, Massachusetts this weekend to see their former college coach receive basketball’s highest honor.
More:Tom Izzo wrote Gene Keady Hall of Fame endorsement: ‘One of the icons in our profession.’
And while “Play hard” might have been a phrase during practices and games, it goes beyond basketball, according to those who played for Keady.
“Whether you’re playing basketball or running a company, the foundation pieces are the same. You’ve got to work hard,” said Todd Mitchell, a member of Purdue’s Three Amigos along with Everette Stephens and Troy Lewis in the 1980s. “You don’t expect to be given anything. The success will come after that.
“But you have to do it together as a team. No one ever does it by themselves. You have a group of people around you and you have to trust folks around you to get the job done. He taught us that and it works in life as well.”
When Painter took over the Purdue basketball program from Keady in 2005, he kept the “Play hard” slogan, once a motivator to him as a Boilermaker guard.
It’s no surprise Keady is the winningest coach in Purdue basketball history, with Painter ranking second.
“He set a standard here. It was that kind of standard from a competitive standpoint more than anything,” Painter said. “Anybody can have a good team and a good program. That entails, are your guys getting it ingrained? Do you have guys that are working together? You have guys sacrifice for your team. Every body wants it to work for themselves and rightfully so. He just brought a camaraderie, cohesion, competitiveness. That was his stamp.”
Gene Keady became Purdue basketball and Purdue basketball came known as the overachieving team that would leave you exiting the gym feeling like you’d just been run through the ringer.
That’s exactly the way Keady wanted it to feel for Boilermaker opponents.
“We’re a blue collar program. It started with him. Play hard. It’s our mantra. It’s on the wall. It’s on the back of these guys’ shorts. It started with coach,” said Brandon Brantley, who played for Keady from 1991-96. “We were scrappy. We didn’t always have the most talent in the league, but we had enough.
“He taught us that. Talent wasn’t everything. Was it important? Absolutely. But things such as diving on the floor, taking charges, being there for your teammates, being early and staying late, all those little things that help you win championships. We’re still doing that very thing to this day.”
Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @samueltking.